It's already a huge pain in the ass to take those things on trips, especially airplane trips. First of all, the vest and nebulizer have a combined weight of 50 pounds. The TSA isn't too fond of medical equipment. Either they rummage through everything if I check it, or they rummage through everything with me standing next to it if I carry it on. But what happens if I carry those things on with me for two flights to London, England? Well, customs also rummaged through my stuff just to check it out. We made it to our hotel just fine, which was two blocks away from the Tower Bridge. We knew about how different the outlets are there, but in our sleep-deprived minds, we didn't realize just how it was different.
A foundation called Make-A-Wish made the London trip possible. I kinda wished it on a whim since they called us out of the blue one day. My only best friend I ever had was really into Harry Potter, and while I've never liked Harry Potter, I wanted to fulfill my friend's wish to go to that museum while also fulfilling my wish to travel overseas. Plus, I was lazy and didn't really want to take the time learning some things in a new language. So, London it was. We had a blast except for the first day, when I blew up both my vest and nebulizer in the hotel room.
My mom had the outlet converters right, but they weren't set to reduce the voltage. I was standing directly in front of my vest machine with my back to it, and I kept hearing a sharp ringing noise, but since no one else acknowledged it, I assumed it was just me. Suddenly, there was a pop that startled all of us, and smoke puffed out of the vent in the back of my vest machine. We all panicked in different ways! I rushed to force open the window, my best friend was already halfway down the hallway, my best friend's mom ran to the bathroom to start filling up the bathtub, and my mom was the brave one. She picked up my vest and threw it into the tub, which actually made everything wet except for the tub.
And if that wasn't enough, my nebulizer, which was plugged into the same converter, also exploded a few moments later, and that also took a bath. I found and dragged my friend back into the room by her arm, after finding her standing in the lobby trying to act as natural as possible. My mom decided the best thing to do was send me with my friend and her mom out onto the morning streets of London, while she had some quiet time to figure out a plan.
While I was out, my mom called a few people, got a British nebulizer delivered to our room, and decided to just pound my back for ten minutes a night to simulate the vest. All in all, we were all good, nothing was allowed to catch on fire in the chaos, and I was given a temporary replacement vest at home while they fixed the one that blew up.
